The Making of a Devil
by ndjn3979
Summary: No one will know, no one will know, because my eyes will never tell, because my lips will never reveal, the toils of my missing years, and the laughing demon in the back of my mind...


Chapter 1: The Nightmare

Ingrid Emmerich had started her 13th year when her father took her to Japan. Even as an adult, she fondly remembered the excited look in his now lightless eyes as he handed her the little white dress with blue ribbons, her old favorite, tantalizing her with the little line he hammered into her head. The greatest gift was yet to come.

"Ingrid, honey, do you know how much your dad loves you? I'll show you something that you will never forget."

Back then, she had little to want and nothing to care for. She did not need to know what her father did, any more than that he was some kind of a doctor. Little Ingrid still pined for her dear mom, but all the constant pampering and gifts from her father had somewhat soothed away the pain during the two years. If there was something she disliked, it was that she had to skip school to go to this Japan. Still, her father had never ceased talking about it for weeks, and eventually, she, too, wanted to go see what a volcano was. (Her mind was really made up when he told her that it "exploded" recently) Sometimes, she still wished that the volcano was really the only thing her father had in mind. What she actually saw in Japan haunted her for the rest of her life.

The trip itself was pleasant. Before going to Japan, her father took her to their old home in Germany, then occupied by a Dr. Boskonovitch. Ingrid recalled her father and the doctor laughing as she tried to pronounce the difficult name, and herself pouting. Bos-kah-no-beach. Bos-kah-no-bitch. She didn't remain that way for long, for the old man had ice cream and candy ready. It looked as if he would join them for the rest of the trip, but to her disappointment, they went to the airport without him.

Their next destination was Nepal. She only remembered that it was too hot, and she herself got sick at the moment she breathed in the humid air. It was there that her father met with the German woman. Little Ingrid was suspicious (and a little jealous), but the lady was young and pretty, and like the old doctor, soon won her over with the delicious chocolate she brought over while her father was asleep. How she had loved sweets back then! She left them for a while, and before she knew it, they had arrived in Japan, and met the lady again. There was the clearest place of her recollections, the lair of her nightmare.

"What is this? What is THIS?! Why can't we see him?"

"Yes, I'm sorry about that, sir. If we had received prior notice-"

"I gave your superiors five weeks. Five weeks! I cross oceans for this little event, and now it's not even ready. After five, long, weeks."

"This isn't what you promised," growled the lady. Ingrid was still reeling from the volcano experience, but she wasn't getting any attention.

"We are trying our best to get ready. Right now-"

"Bring me your boss! Mein Gott, this man is a goddamn fool!" Ingrid cringed, remembering her own mother crying. Her father turned into a brute, once angry.

"Johann! Stop your yelling. Look, your daughter's crying."

Her father gazed down at her. He was still fuming, but seeing her tears must have calmed him somewhat, as he kneeled and gave her a hug.

"Oh, daddy's sorry, Ingrid. Daddy's sorry he yelled. Don't cry. Daddy's not mad." It did little to comfort her, but she managed. The lady took her aside as her father rose to talk with another man. 'He's not stable yet' and 'tomorrow' entered her ears. Just about when her father was about to explode once again, the other man gave in. Her father flashed his smile of triumph, and sometime after, they followed a group of people into an elevator, and went down for a very long time.

What met them there puzzled her. It was a large, bright space, with many trays and machines of different kinds, all of which she would be familiar with later in her life. Amidst the chaos that occupied the room was a large green tube. On closer inspection, the tube contained a half-naked, horribly scarred man, the black mass of his hair floating erratically in the water. Even though he was apparently asleep, something about the creature she beheld put her in unease. It wasn't the evil of a monster or a villain from the movies; neither was she scared, for she spent her childhood looking through anatomy books and was not at all terrified by blood. No, the feeling was more akin to being...trapped. Trapped inside the darkness of blankets or closets, or something else that her immature mind could not comprehend. She simply felt that it was darkness, a kind of unexpressed solitude that silenced her. None of this did she tell her father, lest she'd appear a child once again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, consider yourselves lucky. You are about to meet the most powerful man on this planet." There was a murmur among the group.

"You mean he was." It was the German lady.

"Why, whatever do you mean by that, miss?" At this she hesitated, and looked down at Ingrid. Surprising all present, it was her father who spoke up.

"The man is dead, that's what." Ingrid was stunned. Dead?

"Johann!" He turned and matched her gaze. Even though Ingrid could not see his expression, her father felt like a different person.

"It's all right. Ingrid's old enough for at least that."

As she recalled that moment, a question floated up in her mind. Who can be 'old enough' for death? She fixed her hazel eyes upon those shriveled lips that, once full of life, mocked death as a trite thing. What had he said next?

"Dr. Johann Emmerich. My, it is a pleasure to entertain a celebrated mind such as yourself." The bearded man in the white coat paced about, occasionally stopping to activate a device, his eyes behind the glasses never leaving her father. "I can assume that you know what is about to happen here?"

"Yes, I do, and if you don't mind, I'd like to share my knowledge." Her father stepped forward. The man scratched his bald forehead, while the young people surrounding Ingrid took out their notepads and pens in anticipation.

"You are familiar with the procedure, then."

"I am, but I shall leave that to you. I just want to introduce our star there." With that, he had edged out the man from the platform, and faced the small audience in front of him. The green tube glowed ominously behind him.

"Eh-hem. My name is Johann Emmerich, and I am actually one of the sponsors of this project. I'd like to dedicate this explanation to my daughter (there she is, he pointed), who just had her 13th birthday." Ingrid blushed and tried to smile, but no one save her father looked at her.

"What you are about to see here," he cleared his throat, "is the resurrection of a dead man." Another murmur. He waited until they were completely silent.

"As most of you may already know, the Japanese corporation Mishima Zaibatsu had held two worldwide martial arts tournaments outside the Olympics, the prize being a ton of money in the form of the company itself. This tournament must have drawn the best of the best martial artists the human race had to offer. Even I would have entered, but I'm a doctor."

No one joined in his laughter.

"So it would be safe to say that the winner of this bloody event would be the strongest man on earth, correct? Well then, here is that person himself." He pointed to the unmoving figure behind him. "Right now, he probably couldn't lift a finger, let alone put up a fight."

"His name is Kazuya Mishima. He won the first tournament, and led the Mishima Zaibatsu for two years. The world's richest man! Yet, he was confident enough to bet it all in another tournament. And now, he's dead! Do you have any idea where we found him? In a volcano, for the love of God!"

Ingrid looked at the creature in the tube. Could anything remain in one piece in that blaze? She wondered how he had felt as he died, but could not imagine something she had not experienced.

"I'm not going to keep you waiting forever. For the first time in your life, you will witness the resurrection of a man, one of the many that is to follow. Doctor, please." Her father stepped down, triumphant in his own victory. The expression on his face, etched vividly in her mind, was a peculiar one, something that spearheaded a lecture of lost thoughts and vague dreams. What had he wanted a 13 year old to understand?

She had little time to prepare herself for what was to come. The bearded man, aided by a few assistants, moved the tube and the man to the center of a large central device that had many cords, not unlike colorful snakes, stretched out beyond the view. The temperature in the room began to rise, and with the bubbles raging within tube, her imagination raced fervently, though going nowhere at all. She could not remember what exactly happened. The creature simply stumbled out, shivering despite the warmness, the scars a myriad of lines and the black mane a terrified mess. It gave little convulsions as it attempted to crawl or walk; soon, it was up on all fours. To Ingrid, it was as if she herself had stopped breathing, as if the air was sucked out of the room, as if she was alone in a white and shapeless world. The dead, living! The asleep, awakened!

And the eyes!

The eyes!

"This, is the greatest achievement of mankind. This, is, G-corporation!" She wondered if that was her father, or someone else. The entire atmosphere was like a mixture of a horror movie and the first time she visited a zoo. The first time she gazed into the eyes of a tiger, a captive animal put out for show. To everyone else, it was just something awesome, a form of entertainment. Yet she cringed to see the broken creature shrinking away from her, utterly confused in his new state. He was not unlike a newborn, except he was perhaps half-sentient.

"Look at him, look at him!" She stood still, but those around her had gone forward and hid the creature from her view. She was lost in that chatter, her eyes wide like glass balls in a lifeless doll. Everyone brushed past her to see the creature.

Was it at that moment?

All she felt was a little breeze passing by her hair. In that single, powerful instant, she felt again the anguish she left on her mother's tombstone, and the sadness in the empty hours spent alone and together with others. Most demanding of all, she felt the beat of a familiar but buried emotion. It beat against her heart, spread throughout the entirety of her fragile body, screamed in her ears. It was hatred.

The bearded man sailed over her head and crashed somewhere behind her. Splat, splat, splat. Like the rag dolls she used to play with, the people in front of her were flying off one by one. Was that her father? Was that the nice lady?

The creature was standing, transformed from a helpless babe to a godlike entity. No longer dead, no longer human; it was a beast. A beast held her father by the neck, high above the ground. And with the swing of his suddenly powerful arms, Dr. Johann Emmerich was sent helplessly through a pane of glass and hit the wall with a sickening thud. From somewhere, she could hear the lady telling her something. But it was too late. The 13 year old Ingrid Emmerich stared at the hulking figure, the giant slash gleaming red across its broad chest, and the canine fangs bared in all crude bloodlust.

The eyes!

She had lost the control of her bladder, and felt only a dull thump as the world around her came crashing down into darkness.

And she woke, shivering in the cold. When had she fallen asleep? Ingrid Emmerich had lived another 13 years: now a responsible, successful woman, and a doctor after her father. She ardently wished, however, on almost every night, that her father could answer just one question. Was it all just a bad dream? 


End file.
